Donald Trump Intentionally Lies to Us

He has no mandate. That fact has so unhinged Trump that he is shaming himself and his office by promulgating obvious lies.

January 24, 2017

President-elect Trump calls on a reporter during a news conference in the lobby of Trump Tower, on Wednesday, January 11, 2017. (AP Photo / Evan Vucci)

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On the third full day of Donald Trump’s attempt at a presidency, his press secretary insisted that “our intention is never to lie to you.” On the same day, Donald Trump intentionally lied to us. During his first official meeting with congressional leaders, the 45th president claimed that the reason he lost the national popular vote on November 8 was because 3 million to 5 million “illegals” cast ballots for Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Two days later, on the fifth full day of his presidency, Trump doubled down on his big lie, and turned it into a threat; tweeting on Wednesday morning that: “I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal…”

The news that Trump was again peddling “voter fraud” fantasies had headline writers struggling with the challenge posed by a prevaricating president.

“Without evidence, Trump tells lawmakers 3 million to 5 million illegal ballots cost him the popular vote,” declared the Washington Post topline.

The New York Times got it right: “Trump Repeats Lie About Popular Vote in Meeting With Lawmakers.”

It is vital to be clear about the fact that Trump is lying—intentionally, deliberately, and consistently—about so-called “illegal” voting.

There are two overarching reasons why clarity counts:

1. Claims about “illegal voting,” made by Trump and others, have been used as an excuse to enact laws that make it harder for Americans to vote in states across this country. Election observers have argued that voter-suppression measures played a significant role in giving Trump narrow wins in the handful of states that handed him an Electoral College victory and the presidency. “We have a president-elect who was elected literally with two thumbs and eight fingers on the scale in terms of depressed, suppressed votes in communities all across the country,” says NAACP President Cornell William Brooks.

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Even before Trump tweeted on Wednesday about launching his investigation — which will only heighten tensions over election rules — Republican officials around the country were moving to make it even harder to vote. After the Michigan House endorsed strict Voter ID requirements in early December, The Detroit News reported that state Representative Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, said: “‘There’s certainly no proof’ that any voters who cast ballots without photo identification last month were committing fraud, but they or their peers could nonetheless face a ‘modern-day poll tax’ under the legislation.” Irwin explained: “This is going to cause confusion and chaos at the polls. There’s going to be arguments, voters aren’t going to understand, and long lines are going to get even longer. Maybe that’s the point.”

2. Trump’s popular-vote defeat is an obsession of the new president. He returns regularly to the issue of his missing mandate and the questions it raises about the legitimacy of his presidency. Monday’s incident was not the first time that Trump lied about “illegal” voting.

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In November, he tweeted: “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally,” and then declared: “Serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California—so why isn’t the media reporting on this? Serious bias—big problem!”

Trump’s claims were false. Election officials said so. Journalists who observed the election and reviewed Trump’s claims about it said so. The investigative journalism project ProPublica reported: “We had 1,100 people monitoring the vote on Election Day. We saw no evidence the election was ‘rigged.’” ProPublica noted that its reporters had found “no evidence that undocumented immigrants voted illegally.”

Neither Trump nor his allies have presented any evidence of widespread illegal voting. In reality, studies have consistently shown that voter fraud is nowhere near common enough to call into question millions and millions of votes.

Indeed, the ability to carry off such a far-reaching conspiracy—potentially involving millions of people over the course of several months and without being noticed by election administration officials, many of them in states controlled by Republicans—is ridiculously illogical. We rate Trump’s statement Pants on Fire.

As in: pants-on-fire lie.

Donald Trump and his aides—including Spicer, who on Tuesday dutifully defended his boss’s latest lie as the expression of a “long-standing belief” on the part of the president—could not have missed last fall’s challenges, clarifications, and headlines. The Trump team cannot be unaware of the reality that, as Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Keith Ellison says: “There is no record of millions of people who are not authorized to vote voting in this election. The reason that Donald Trump lost the popular vote is because most Americans don’t prefer him.”

So when Trump pushes the “millions of people who voted illegally” line now—not as the president-elect but as the occupant of the Oval Office—he is using the bully pulpit of the presidency to deliberately deceive the American people. And when he proposes an investigation of a “problem” that does not exist, he engages in an Orwellian abuse of the power of that office to spread a big lie.

The truth is this: Fifty-four percent of Americans voted for someone other than Donald Trump for president. Hillary Clinton won 65,844,610 votes for president, while Donald Trump received just 62,979,636 votes. That’s a 2,864,974 popular-vote victory for Clinton. Donald Trump is the president. But he has no mandate. That fact has so unhinged Trump that he is now shaming himself and his office by promulgating obvious lies.

It may not be lying. He could be seriously mentally unhinged.
Check out the checklist for psychopathy:
Superficial charm and glibness.
Inflated sense of self-worth.
Constant need for stimulation.
Lying pathologically.
Conning others; being manipulative.
Lack of remorse or guilt.
Shallow emotions.
Callousness; lack of empathy.

(4)(0)

Walter Pewensays:

January 30, 2017 at 11:39 pm

Of course Clark, that's exactly what he is. The problem is, we likely are not going to be able to do criminal law on him because Americans are in denial about it. If he were an average citizen, I would surmise he would have been in psychiatric lockup a long time ago. He is that.

(2)(0)

David Watsonsays:

January 25, 2017 at 11:00 pm

This is a matter of the Big Lie strategy. It is also Trump's m.o., projection, e.g., he says this is a Third World country and he turns it into a Banana Republic; he says HRC is the most corrupt person ever to run for President, and in fact he probably is. And now he is talking about voter fraud as a direct smokescreen to consolidate voter suppression. We may never get back to square one. As a coda, let me thank the Jill Stein greenbots (where are they now?), Bernie holdouts who failed to listen to Bernie's reminder that we live in the real world, and fossil lefts who disseminated the lie of equivalency between the two candidates and their parties. If she had won we would be seeing a federal government expanding access to voting--for its own reasons, surely, and for ours. Now we are seeing what might very easily be the end of democracy in this country.

(22)(5)

Melissa Brownsays:

January 26, 2017 at 7:26 pm

If you can't even take seriously the concern of Sanders and Stein supporters, how are you going to engage Trump voters sufficiently on their concerns to get any to shift their votes?

(7)(4)

Charlene Fludersays:

January 25, 2017 at 10:38 pm

Bravo, John Nichols, for simply coming out and using the dreaded "L" word. I was dismayed today to read NPR's official position on this issue, which states that knowledge of Trump's intent would be necessary to call a statement of his a lie, and that it is not possible to get into his head to ascertain his intent.
Sorry, NPR, but this is taking political correctness beyond the bounds of sanity. This is not a time for obsessing about the niceties of civilized behavior. We are dealing with an individual and a political party that have no use for "playing fair." If we do not call out our Liar-In-Chief when he blatantly lies, we might as well resign ourselves to accepting four years of a bizarro-world unreality designed to accomplish the political aims of wealthy plutocrats and mega-corporations, and the consequences won't be pretty for all the rest of us.

(17)(1)

Lynda Batessays:

January 25, 2017 at 7:59 pm

The central question has to be "why" does he lie to us. This means that we have to go beyond the merely personal "mental health" reasons to the central important "Political Questions." What wins?

(7)(0)

Walter Pewensays:

January 30, 2017 at 11:42 pm

Because he is mentally ill. According to the DSM. Seriously, clinical should be in lockup actually for life. Possibly medicated, not allowed to interact with anyone.

(0)(0)

Joseph E Grinnansays:

January 25, 2017 at 7:24 pm

The evidence mounts daily that Trump mentally unhinged and a very real danger to the country if not the world.

(27)(0)

Donald Tittlesays:

January 25, 2017 at 6:39 pm

Trump is an egomaniacal lunatic. It enrages him so much that a person with a p**sy beat him, that he is willing to denigrate our election process. He has NO evidence to support this lunacy. He knows damn well it is a lie. He does not give a damn about the truth. What is sad is that many of his ignorant supporters think, even with no evidence, that he is right. How in God's name has our country become so hateful and mindless? I truly believe this man is unhinged.

(29)(0)

Lenley Lewissays:

January 25, 2017 at 6:00 pm

"Obvious lies serve a purpose for an administration. They watch who challenges them and who loyally repeats them. The people must watch, too."
Gary Kasparov tweet Jan 21. BEFORE Alt-facts, Trumped up investigation into voter fraud,?reasserting torture, cozying up to the now job secure Comey, immigration threats, etc.

(14)(0)

Tammy Owenssays:

January 25, 2017 at 5:59 pm

got to wonder.... [how many people in politics]
Par·a·noi·a..ˌ
a mental condition characterized by delusions of persecution, unwarranted jealousy, or exaggerated self-importance, typically elaborated into an organized system. suspicion and mistrust of people or their actions without evidence or justification.
It may be an aspect of chronic personality disorder, of drug abuse, or of a serious condition such as schizophrenia in which the person loses touch with reality.
synonyms: persecution complex, delusions, obsession.
noun: schizophrenia
a long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation.
(in general use) a mentality or approach characterized by inconsistent or contradictory elements.
I can see in this man trump ,has displayed,
inconsistent, self important, mistrust faulty perception , obsession ,ect.. quite unsettling

(22)(0)

Suzon Gordonsays:

January 25, 2017 at 3:59 pm

I observe that we have someone able to throw a smokescreen to distract us from what he's actually doing--the bidding of a class of individuals of great wealth who have ingratiated themselves with him and who dictate his daily Presidential orders. We will be the poorer for it. Literally and otherwise. But at the same time it's the stuff of which dictatorships are made. Watch and see.

(33)(0)

Cynthia Lommassonsays:

January 25, 2017 at 1:34 pm

I think the lies are a simple diversionary tactic. I would not be at all surprised if Trump and Conway decide on the outrageous and ridiculous lie of the day in order to draw attention away from the daily onslaught of executive orders. It does get attention, in the same way his Tweets do.

(36)(0)

Lawrence Austinsays:

January 25, 2017 at 1:22 pm

It's a deliberate tactic used by many dictators. Get the people to believe the big lie. The headlines you quoted that included the fact that the assertion is a lie is some small reason for hope. The press CANNOT roll over on this one unless it wants to deliver our nation to totalitarianism.

(41)(0)

Barbara Finlaysays:

January 25, 2017 at 12:53 pm

He is trying to confuse the difference between fact and fiction, so that people don't know what to believe. He is especially trying to undermine the credibility of the mainstream media, and for many of his followers, he has succeeded. The Congress, especially the Republicans, needs to stand up and call him out and not accept this. It is extremely dangerous to a democratic society. We need to keep at the Congressional members on this!

(34)(0)

Michael Robertsonsays:

January 25, 2017 at 11:22 pm

Republican propaganda has laid the groundwork for Trump's tactics. Republicans read their talking points off the same script, most of them outright falsehoods. Fox News has created an alternate universe for it's followers. Trump simply moved into this space and took it further. With few exceptions Republicans have not called Trump out to this point. We'll see what it takes to get a few of them to do the right thing.

(11)(0)

Edward M Protassays:

January 25, 2017 at 1:40 pm

I think the mainstream media has done a pretty good job of undermining their own credibility.

(11)(30)

James Seeleysays:

January 26, 2017 at 12:56 am

Post about it the first time you hear Drumpfy correct any error he makes. I'll buy the fireworks.

(6)(0)

James Philipssays:

January 25, 2017 at 12:24 pm

It is clear from Trump's electoral college victory that he knows exactly what he's doing. "Unhinged" would imply that he's unable to control what he says. He seems very well able to manipulate a large minority of the electorate. This takes careful control, not the lack of it.

(15)(5)

William J Mac Beansays:

January 25, 2017 at 12:12 pm

Well, ya see, first Hillary mopped the floor with him at the "debates", then she actually won the election by almost three million votes.
Captain Grab Ass simply can't abide even one dismal failure at the hands of a woman, let alone two, so (I hope) he's quietly going nuts.
He's already delusional so he hasn't all that far to go.

(45)(1)

Suzon Gordonsays:

January 25, 2017 at 3:52 pm

No, I think he's being used as a puppet by those who have his ear to destroy our environment, confidence in elections, etc. It's all a smokescreen.

(14)(1)

Nina Davissays:

January 25, 2017 at 11:32 am

Trump is a narcissist, as in 'Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). There is no evidence, or at least none that I've read about, that he is mentally ill as well. He isn't crazy (or unhinged). The sooner we as a nation fully grasp the psychic dysfunction of the man sitting in the Oval office, the faster we cease to normalize and effectively reject his presence as our political leader.

Narcissism exists as part of the human personality spectrum; we're all on that spectrum. There's no 'them', just 'we'. We've normalized a high level of narcissism in our everyday expressions of ourselves. Social media, anyone? Taken a 'selfie' lately? Today? Commented online? A lot? In your face-to-face conversations, do you talk about yourself almost exclusively? Do your friends and family do the same?

Have you noticed we seem to be living in a culture of profoundly self-absorbed individuals, and we think that's normal?!

Sixty-three million people went to the polls and voted for someone with an extreme, quantifiable, diagnosable personality disorder, the overwhelming evidence gleefully delivered to us by the media for months, and it did not give them pause. The Donald projected his self-image onto the country via his public opinion, and 63 million people said 'I hear ya, Donnie!', and they meant it to the core of their being.

(And before you object, that the demographic that voted for Trump was old, white, and Republican, I'll counter now with, 'Have you spent a lot of time with old people? I have and their favorite topic of conversation is themselves. They can go on for hours, especially about their pasts.)

Donald Trump believes (as though it were fact) every word coming out of his mouth, in service to his ego, his self-image. For a narcissist, this isn't a choice, it's the compulsion driving him forward, the demon that must be fed. He "lies" because he only understands the truthiness that serves him at that moment. He's incapable of hearing or understanding his own contradictions. The Donald is a slave to himself, but he was elected to be our servant. In his daily conflicts of interest between serving himself or the public, 'the house' that is Trump will win out every time. The 'odds' for the office of president have been heavily tilted in his favor.

We can resist him. I think we'll have a very hard time removing him from office.

(52)(3)

Sheila Smithsays:

January 25, 2017 at 1:39 pm

And the other side of narcissism is trying to destroy people who displeased you. The more he's challenged, the more"enemies" he will do anything to defeat. This is very risky business when he has a entire, completely unethical party of repubs behind him, no matter how crazy he gets.

(32)(0)

Walter Pewensays:

January 25, 2017 at 12:39 pm

Not at all. He will be removed. Sooner than some people think. He is the total demises of our government. If we got Nixon out, we will get Trump out. If we don't, you and I will likely not have something like the Nation to air our thoughts. Your fatalism is sickening.

(8)(1)

Betsy Smithsays:

January 25, 2017 at 3:39 pm

Trump out is good. Pence in is not good. I'm not looking forward to a theocracy. We need to be careful what we wish for.

(7)(0)

Walter Pewensays:

January 25, 2017 at 4:31 pm

What we CAN wish for is the CIA finding Russian tampering with the election. New election. Start collectively brainstorming or go down the sewer, this time permanently.

(7)(0)

Nina Davissays:

January 25, 2017 at 3:05 pm

Only two presidents have been successfully impeached and both were later acquitted, as though we had decided our presidents were less bother in office, however incompetent or corrupt, than trying to remove them.

Nixon resigned before he could be impeached, so we can't really say 'we got him out'. He denied us that victory.

I voted for Bernie. He's still my de facto leader, so hardly fatalistic. I'm weighing out our chances of parole before the end of this four year sentence.

(6)(2)

Walter Pewensays:

January 25, 2017 at 4:30 pm

I also voted for Bernie, I really dislike HRC but I voted for her. That was then, this is now. We do not HAVE four years as a country under this administration. And, Pence is also unacceptable. Old Jewish proverb: Faced with two bad choices, find a third that isn't.

(14)(0)

Don Salmonsays:

January 25, 2017 at 12:20 pm

Nina, you're using terminology incorrectly. I'm guessing you meant that Trump is not psychotic, not that he's not mentally ill.

Technically, also, it is customary among mental health professionals to provide a diagnosis for someone they have neither met nor evaluated.

however, since you're asserting that Trump indeed does meet the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder, then this - if it were true - would mean he is mentally ill.

These technical terms are not in themselves that important (many quite rightly question the validity of the DSM-V, the psychiatric Bible) but if you're going to use the terms, it's helpful to get them right.

The most important thing, I think, is that Trump is a pathological narcissist. He seems to me to feel compelled to lie; people who think he is simply some genius, Machiavellian manipulator are, I believe, giving him too much credit.

(18)(0)

Nina Davissays:

January 25, 2017 at 6:42 pm

I'm wrestling with the language publicly. If Donald Trump is crazy, then for the same reasons or complementary ones, so are the 63 million voters who voted for him, and that's a lot of crazy. The definitions of mental illnesses lose their meaning, the boundaries are too blurry.

'That millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane.' -- Erich Fromm

(5)(0)

Melissa Brownsays:

January 25, 2017 at 8:01 am

I agree with John Nichols that the media and all of us need to call Trump and his administration on their lies and that we need to identify and work against disenfranchisement and other unethical actions by any and every government official.

That said, I am disturbed by Nichols's use of "unhinged," both as click bait in the title and in his concluding sentence. Where does such name-calling get us? Not to truth: Nichols doesn’t have the kind of access to Trump to make any reasonable psychological assessment of Trump. And worse, by dismissing these lies as mental illness, Nichols misses the opportunity to call Trump and his administration out for a well-known yet still effective propaganda tactic: if you keep repeating lies (some) people begin to believe them. Whatever Trump's personal mental health status, there are plenty of people around him backing these lies to justify calling the lies deliberate propaganda by his administration. "I was just following orders" doesn't excuse immoral behavior.

(16)(5)

Don Salmonsays:

January 25, 2017 at 12:22 pm

Melissa, I fully agree. I alluded to this in my reply to Nina, but you nailed it - whatever his issues, there are plenty around him who ARE consciously using this tactic of using lies quite deliberately as propaganda.

Very well said.

(14)(0)

Dan & K Bullard-siskensays:

January 25, 2017 at 2:04 pm

I agree with both. The psychological analysis really falls short. How can such an "unhinged" obsessed person reel off action after action every day? Clearly there is organization in his shop and it seems to be the case that he is playing a clever diversionary game. Time to focus on who has power (Bannon?) and points of vulnerability.

(6)(0)

Richard Strawsays:

January 25, 2017 at 3:32 am

the truth is that Trump and his Republican allies do not have even a passing acquaintance with the reality on the best of days-now we can see what not standing up for the voters and demanding that the ballots be counted gives us-thanks for nothing I've seen small scared children with more courage than the Dems have shown in decades. With the recent betrayals of Americans on drug prices-voting for flawed cabinet nominees-and failure to make HUGE waves about Trump's violation of the highest law in the land is very telling. In fact it is a Republican(Bush ethics lawyer ) who stepped up to the plate on this one-what's the excuse this time?

(21)(0)

Betsy Smithsays:

January 25, 2017 at 3:41 pm

While the Dems have shown a lack of integrity, many Republicans are equally culpable.

(3)(0)

Edward M Protassays:

January 24, 2017 at 3:52 pm

In the land of Alternative Facts
They create what reality lacks
The agenda seems clear
Based on falsehood and fear
And spread by their pliable hacks

(56)(0)

Michael A Frascasays:

January 24, 2017 at 3:35 pm

Trump isn't lying; he is trying to dominate and force his view of reality upon the world:

“For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?”
* * *
“You are a slow learner, Winston."
"How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four."
"Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three.”
* * *
“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.”
― George Orwell, 1984

(58)(0)

Brian R Donovansays:

January 24, 2017 at 3:16 pm

Trump is not so much lying as BSing, per Harry Frankfurt's insightful distinction. Any correspondence between his utterance and any kind of objective reality would be a mere coincidence, and not a particularly interesting one at that. He simply says whatever at that moment he would like to believe is true, without the slightest regard for whether it actually is or not. And of course what he would like to believe is true is whatever is flattering to his ego.

(23)(2)

Arthur Roggowsays:

January 24, 2017 at 2:34 pm

Some one should point out to this idiot that Bill Clinton only received 43% of the vote in his first term and that he should just "shut up" about it.

(3)(19)

Michael Robertsonsays:

January 25, 2017 at 5:31 pm

The article makes the point that the person most obsessed over losing the popular vote is. . . Donald Trump. And Mr. Trump simply will not shut up about it.

(8)(0)

Robert Andrewssays:

January 24, 2017 at 2:57 pm

Ross Perot took a chunk out of the popular vote, so why don't you relax and spend a weekend in Colorado.

(13)(0)

Doug Barrsays:

January 24, 2017 at 1:17 pm

Donald Trump isn't lying. He just doesn't know the truth and he's not the only one. https://thelastwhy.ca/poems/2006/11/5/truth.html